Honda Gets Facebook Right
One approach on how to market a product on Facebook
If you are like me, every day brings two or three new emails about 6 Secrets of Social Media; 5 Steps to Gigantic Consumer Engagement, 3 Secrets to better Facebook Advertising and naturally, 2 webinars on the subject. I never join the seminars (I can read faster than they can talk) but I download some of the papers offered and my take is that most are short on facts, long on unsubstantiated opinions and few people get it right.
The random nature of advertising
Considering that advertising is mainly random, I am never surprised to see this on my timeline:
In a single column I get an English-language ad for some random furniture sale, an IT service, a Spanish-language ad selling single women and an English-language ad for online dating.
Part of this is undoubtedly my Facebook profile (look me up: Marcelo Salup) which is varied to say the least. But a lot of it is the sheer randomness we also experience in television, cable, radio and out of home.
Nevertheless, as an advertising professional, I think about online, Facebook, engagement and ROI a lot.
Honda gets it right
A campaign that has gotten my attention is Hondas. There are several factors that make it outstanding as far as other Facebook efforts Ive seen:
- It speaks Facebook: Short, quirky and almost personal.
- The photography is really bad; it could have been made by anyone using a smart phone camera.
- It invites people to contribute
- It is totally random, like most of your friends posts.
- But it draws attention to a few of Hondas well known virtues: reliability, solid build and what I call down-home-iness. The car is almost a part of the family.
It is, in short, like any other post youd see from your friends but it doesnt lose sight that it is there to sell.
Some examples and then a non-PC conclusion
The ad drew almost 9,500 likes and 2,000 comments. It was shared 856 times. Not bad.
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Giving your car a name is a bit cliché-ish but, 488 people commented on it.
Notice the awful quality of the picture, the old model seen from the back and the foreign plate. This could be a post from your college friends. There were 83 comments and 103 shares in the first half hour alone.
Positive Reactions
You can see people reacting well in the pictures and stories they share
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Honda posted this picture
And people posted their own. To Hondas credit, it allowed every comment to remain including anti-war, anti-soldier ones. And, why not these also create engagement. While many traditionalists would worry about the brand being associated with anti-soldier or anti-American sentiments, Honda clearly figured out that any normal person would clearly see that the author of these comments is another Facebook user and not Honda.
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